Recognition
by bushlaboo
Summary: A bit of a spin on the soulmate trope, sort of OTA-style that is mostly canon compliant through season three.


Soulmates are a funny thing. Everyone has the _one_. The _big_ mate, as her mother often referred to it. Your destined other half, the missing piece of yourself that allows everything else to click into place so that you are complete. It is as simple as that, but also much more complicated because there is a process to the whole soulmate thing – a growth you have to undergo. Sort of like time-bake. Your soulmate is not born perfect or ready for you, marked so that you can easily identify them upon your first meeting. That would be too easy and life, life wasn't about it ease; it was about the journey you undertook to become who you were always meant to be. That journey was every instant of your life – good, bad, or indifferent – and each person that got you to the ultimate destination of meeting your soulmate. But it was only when you were both truly ready for that moment that your soulmate would be revealed to you.

That was where her mother got her concept of little mates from. If everyone and thing shapes you, then they were supposed to be a part of your life, leading you on your way to being ready to meet your _one_ ; meaning that they were your mates, of a fashion, as well. It was a concept that even with her genius-level IQ Felicity had trouble wrapping her head around, but Donna Smoak exuberantly expressed it to anyone who would listen and working in a Las Vegas casino a **lot** of folks heard it. Including a publishing guru who loved the idea so much that she matched her bubbly mother with a ghostwriter and six months later We're All Mates was launched to rave reviews and an exhaustive four month worldwide book and lecturing tour.

Her mother became an icon and Felicity, well she became more of hermit, shying away from her mother's sudden celebrity status and honing in on her studies. It wasn't until later. Much, much later when she stood in front of her mate, her _big_ mate, for the first time and they knew with the sudden swoop and warmth flooding them and the inexplicable need to reach out and touch each other that they had found their _one_ that she could see each link in the chain – each little mate, some more significant than others – that led to their shared moment of recognition.

* * *

 **I. Cooper Seldon**

Until the day she was told that he had died, even after he had been carted off to jail, Felicity had always believed that she and Cooper would grow together until the soulmate moment happened between them.

After his fake-death she had resigned herself to never having that moment in her life. For the longest time she hadn't want a soulmate if it wasn't Cooper. As the world she isolated herself in expanded and she once again opened herself up to people and to friendship, Felicity found herself willing to accept that perhaps, just maybe, there was a soulmate out there for her that wasn't Cooper Seldon.

Felicity considered Cooper a link in her own person soulmate chain – the first person she wanted to be the _one_ and also the first person she was grateful wasn't her intended mate.

She needed both of those feelings, as well as, a perfect embodiment of everything she didn't want in a mate, to be able to accept the circuitous route it took her to get to her soulmate recognition.

 **II. Walter Steele**

The only reason Oliver Queen had walked into her office with a busted laptop, charming façade and horrible lie – the true start in their journey – why he even knew and said her name that first time, "Felicity Smoak," was because Walter Steele had given him her name as one of the best and brightest in Queen Consolidated's IT Department.

Quite literally Oliver's stepfather orchestrated their meet-cute with his recommendation. He was why a former playboy billionaire turn vigilante introduced himself with an aura of charm, "Hi, I'm Oliver Queen," that was meant to get her to do as he asked without any opposition.

It hadn't quite worked out that way and though she hadn't exactly asked him any pointed questions, she hadn't bought his line of bull either. Still she had done what he requested and the rest as they say was history … well with the added push of Walter's kidnapping and her desire to help find him being what led her to join Team Arrow in the first the place.

 **III. John Diggle**

The first time she met John Diggle was in the role of Oliver Queen's bodyguard. He'd come with Oliver to QC supposedly looking for a lead to reconnect with an old friend – and yeah, she hadn't really believed that excuse either, but Diggle's offhanded joke about Oliver's lack of a MySpace page had amused her and led her to reconsider both men.

Felicity found in that brief meeting that she liked John Diggle, and the fact that he put up with the pretense that Oliver put on, dubious truth telling capabilities and all, made her think that there was something more to the man whose family's name was on the side of the building than a pretty face.

Honestly, she had helped Oliver the first time because she had been caught off guard and the second time because with one word she'd been certain he could get her fired, but when he came back a third time with a ridiculous request – this time needing assistance with a so-called scavenger hunt – she had only acquiesced because she knew Diggle saw something in him. And Felicity, she saw something in John Diggle.

In all the links between her and Oliver, John Diggle was the biggest piece that brought and held them together. She allowed herself to trust Oliver because she had instinctively trusted Diggle and when there was so much hurt between them that it felt like it tearing her asunder Diggle had been the reason she stayed.

Yes, Oliver's mission – saving the city, helping people – had become her own; but there were other ways that she could have gone about it. When Oliver had broken her heart (how cruel was it that such heartache had to happen before their moment could come?) she had stayed with the team because of Diggle. Roy too, as she'd come to love the younger man like another brother, but the biggest reason she stayed was Diggle. He was her family and she could not imagine her life or their shared cause with him.

As soulmates they were Oliver and Felicity, a smooshed together pair made whole, but in reality that pair didn't work without John Diggle. And in watching Diggle reconnect with Lyla and finally having his soulmate moment with his ex-wife (and again it seemed wrong that they had to share in so much pain separately and together before they were truly ready) she realized that Diggle didn't really work without them either.

They were a triumvirate, the three of them mates of another kind, one that her mother hadn't even thought to define.

 **IV. Moira Queen**

A mother shooting her own son, even if she didn't know it was him, would be a defining a moment in his life; but Oliver had been trying to live separate lives since his return from Lian Yu. If Felicity could pinpoint a moment with certainty where those separated threads had started to tangle themselves together so that Oliver was no longer playing roles but becoming the person he was meant to be, it would have to be the night Moira shot him.

He had never come to her under his hood before that night, but that was the man he had mostly been upon his return from the island: The Hood. But there was always the man underneath it waiting to be rediscovered. Diggle had been the first to see him and she had been the second.

As a symbol the Hood could not be injured, but as a man he'd crawled into the back of her car, revealed his most important secret and asked not only for her help but her acceptance. Oliver let her into his life and mission that night. All because of a single bullet fired by the woman who gave him life. A bullet that changed both of theirs lives.

It wouldn't be the only time Moira Queen caused a cataclysmic shift to their world, but of all the earth-shattering moments she wrought, it was the most vital to their journey.

 **V. Laurel Lance**

Felicity had called her Gorgeous Laurel the first time Oliver introduced her to the leggy, beautiful and intelligent brunette. Standing behind the bar at Verdant the contrast between them – frazzled, nerdy sweater wearing tech support versus put together, glamorous super lawyer with a heart of gold – she had felt inadequate.

Laurel Lance had two handsome billionaires pining after her and she had standing dates with her pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream.

It was only over time that Felicity realized that she was looking at Laurel wrong. The other woman was not her foil and it wasn't about what Laurel was or wasn't, it was about how she saw herself. Each time she helped bring down someone corrupting Starling her confidence grew.

 **She** was talented. **She** was brilliant. **She** was beautiful. **She** was vital.

It was the confidence, which admittedly wavered some, but always came back stronger than before; that allowed her to become the center her team needed. The voice in all their ears guiding them home.

Once she was able to see herself clearly, something she wouldn't have been able to do without first gazing into the unattainable mirror, she was able to do the same with Laurel and that allowed them to develop a genuine friendship.

 **VI. Tommy Merlyn**

Oliver losing Tommy meant they lost him. In his grief and guilt he ran from Starling and his time away had many consequences: first, she and Diggle grew closer, and by the time they went to retrieve Oliver they had become their own unit within their triad.

Second, it put the final nail in the romantic aspect of his relationship with Laurel.

Third, it left them open and vulnerable to Isabel Rochev, Sebastian Blood and Slade Wilson, in a manner they never could have predicted.

Lastly, and most profoundly, it changed how they went about their mission. Oliver wanted to find a new way, a less lethal way to go about helping the city.

Over those early months Felicity had limited interaction with Tommy Merlyn. They had a few meaningless brushes together at Verdant, he'd given her a stern talking to about the danger Oliver was putting her in after he found out about their nighttime activities, and finally she had reached out to him in an effort to convince Tommy not to cut Oliver out of his life.

Neither of them had been successful, but she had found the younger Merlyn to be charming and decent ... the type of person you'd want to be proud of you and do right by.

Oliver's transformation, and ultimately theirs, from vigilante to hero truly started with his need to honor Tommy.

 **VII. Isabel Rochev**

The first time Oliver had honestly disappointed her was when Isabel sashayed out of his hotel room in Russia, dress not fully zipped, stating that her services were not needed for the evening.

That Isabel had reduced her to a cliché had meant little to Felicity. Though the rampant rumors around QC had bothered her slightly she had learned to ignore them, they were nothing but a distraction from what they were trying to accomplish with the company and as Team Arrow.

Flinging aside Isabel's self-satisfied smirk, however, had not been easy. By that point she had feelings for Oliver, little daydreams that had been crushed under the heels of Isabel's stilettos as she left a wake of discord in her path.

Though she had done her best not to put Oliver on a pedestal, it had been difficult not to romanticize him and their relationship. Seeing Oliver with Isabel tarnished what she thought had been growing between them. Though it would take much worse than the evil brunette to have her regret (momentarily) her less than platonic feelings for Oliver, the incident with Isabel was the first time Felicity chastised herself for her romantic hopes in regards to Oliver Queen.

 **VIII. Count Vertigo (1.0)**

"There was no choice to make," Oliver had said those words to her as a way to ease her guilt for putting him in a position to break his vow to Tommy.

She had not anticipated the Count finding her when she went to follow the lead Diggle physically couldn't and with Oliver distracted by his mother's trial that had left her. To deal with a madman who liked to drug and kidnap people. In hindsight it had not been her smartest decision, but in her defense she believed it to be a fact finding mission. One with zero chance of discovery, particularly by the big bad they were trying to stop.

From the moment Oliver had dropped his hood, giving her his trust, Felicity knew he cared about her. He wouldn't have given her his biggest secret if he hadn't. Still it wasn't until he chose her that night, over his own well-being and Tommy that she realized just how much he cared.

 **IX. Barry Allen**

She told Barry once that they were perfectly perfect for each other and it was true. Ideally, Barry Allen, with his quick wit and awkward charm was the kind of man she pictured when she opened herself back up to the idea of finding her soulmate.

But she and Barry had never been interlocking pieces coming together to make a whole. They were too similarly shaped.

He and their friendship was a necessary and vital thread in the tapestry of her life. And in the end they were each a building block in the others life, neither able to reach their full potential without the other.

To have all of that with sweetness was something Felicity was grateful for, because so much of her path at the time seemed to be shadowed and difficult, and Barry was a reminder that what was waiting for her on the other side of it all would be worth it.

 **X. & XI. Roy Harper and Quentin Lance**

With Diggle Felicity gained a big brother, someone to be protective and supportive of her, and in some ways he allowed her to do the same for him, but she didn't get to flex her true nurturing muscle until Oliver introduced Roy to the team.

He had chafed at her mothering at first, having a not so stellar role model in that area, Felicity understood his hesitancy to trust her motives. While her mother was nearly her complete opposite, she had been there, always trying her best and always loving her. Unlike her father.

Oliver had thrust her into Roy's life, while she got to choose the man she looked up to in a father-like role. Quentin Lance was another link between her and Oliver; a man they both admired and wanted to make proud. They succeeded and failed, their relationship with Lance ebbing and flowing but when it came down to the nitty gritty, the moments when they truly needed to rely on each other, they always could.

Roy was the boy neither had wanted to disappoint. They had also wanted to help him realize his full potential and for him to accept that he was worthy of the time and love people invested in him.

Releasing Roy into the world on his own had been one of the most difficult things she had ever done, though doing so gave her a greater appreciation of her own mother, who had done the same for her.

 **XII. Slade Wilson**

Oliver's one time ally and friend brought nothing but misery to their lives. He was behind the havoc unleashed by Isabel and Sebastian; he tormented the team by kidnapping Thea, and ravaged Oliver's heart when he killed Moira.

His machinations led to her declaration in the clock tower that Oliver was not alone and that she believed in him.

Their battle to defeat him had Oliver confessing that Slade had taken the wrong woman when abducting Laurel, implying that she was the one he loved.

And it was after they had him squirreled away on Lian Yu that they shared their unthinkable moment, neither of ready but both of them desperately wanting to be.

 **XIII. Sara Lance**

Sara was the harbinger of the end to her romantic relationship with Oliver. Consistently. After Isabel and his "because of the life I lead" speech she had taken his relationship with Sara as a clear sign that whatever they might be to each other, they were decidedly not soulmates.

In fact, Felicity had come to anticipate that Oliver would find his soulmate in Sara Lance. Their sudden break up and Sara's departure had done little to change that notion until the moment she shared with Oliver in the Queen Mansion while the city was under attack by Slade's Mirakuru army.

All through the summer following Slade's unsuccessful bid to destroy the city Oliver was trying to save, Felicity had felt that something more growing between them again. The unthinkable was becoming a possibility.

Then their date had been blown up and Sara had been murdered and that possibility she had hung all her hopes on ended.

 **XIV. Ray Palmer**

At first Felicity had wanted nothing to do with Ray Palmer. He had introduced himself in the guise of a mild manner Tech Village customer and undermined Oliver's bid to retake control of Queen Consolidated. He had then pursued her – for employment reasons – in the most disturbingly stalker-ish way. It was only after she conceded to work for him that Felicity realized that beyond Ray's awkward goal oriented wooing he was actually a sweet guy who just needed to learn how to tone down his exuberant one-track mind.

Bouncing ideas off of him, learning from and with him, while teaching him a thing or two was a lot fun and after she had completely written off the idea of there being a 'her and Oliver' she considered Ray for another role: soulmate.

Admittedly she forced it, which was foolish because Anna had been his _one_ , but Felicity had hoped that maybe a person could have another mate or at least that they could be the perfect mate for another person.

She ended up hurting them both with that notion, but at the time she had desperately needed to believe in it.

 **XV. & XVI. Malcolm Merlyn and Nyssa al Ghul**

There was much Felicity could say on the topic of Malcolm Merlyn, egotistic megalomaniac murderer that he was, but she would not give him the significance those words would imbue him with – it was more than enough that he was the reason behind Tommy's death, Thea's near death, Oliver's apparent death and the devastating wedge between her and Oliver when she had just gotten him back.

Malcolm Merlyn was good at only one thing: ruining lives. Nyssa, Oliver's wife, knew that. Not that she was certain any government or court in the world would uphold a forced marriage ceremony at the hands of an international cartel of assassins but it aggravated Felicity that Nyssa could call Oliver husband. That she had claim upon him that she did not.

 **XVII. Thea Queen**

Death by a thousand cuts, that is how her romantic relationship with Oliver seemed to dissolve before her eyes. Sharp little slices, until that moment in the alleyway when she told him that she didn't want to be a woman he loved.

And still that hadn't been the end of _them_. Not really.

It hadn't matter that she had started seeing Ray or that there was more hurt and anger between them than anything else. That something more was still there between them and Felicity had begun to think that it always would be.

Then Ra's al Ghul had stabbed Thea, nearly killing her, all in a bid to make Oliver heir to his murdering band of fanatics.

Their true end, at least it had seemed to be at the time, came when Oliver sacrificed himself and any future he could have outside of the League to save his sister.

Felicity Smoak could never be Al Sah-him's soulmate because Oliver Queen would never allow it.

 **XVIII. Ra's al Ghul**

Ra's al Ghul was their death, but he was also their renewal. He was the impetus she needed to confess her feelings to Oliver while she could.

They had one night together in Nanda Parbat, their feelings and bodies laid bare. It was a night more than Felicity ever thought she would get so she savored it, made it a memory that would sustain her through a life alone.

Because as she left Oliver in Nanda Parbat, Felicity knew she was done with soulmates.

 **XIX. Tatsu Yamashiro**

Until she wasn't.

With a few words Oliver's old friend Tatsu Yamashiro had given her renewed hope – in Oliver, in them, in soulmates. "During his recuperation Oliver spoke of you. Of how his last thought before the fall … was of you."

* * *

She had flown in Ray's super suit to save him, once again taking on her fear of heights (or maybe it was just the fear of falling from them) to rescue Oliver. A part of her knew before standing in front him, filled with pride at her successful rescue and the relief that he was alive and that their team managed to protect the city; some part of her had always known that this moment was going to come and that it would be with Oliver Queen.

His face had gone from queasy to beaming when he realized it was her in the suit. They just stood there, faces stretched wide with grins, love shimmering in their eyes and the recognition **finally** happened. Not just friends or partners, members of their triumvirate or even fully realized love between two people (the kind her mother had written about to explain why she and so many others married without that moment of recognition) but _soulmates_.

Oliver Queen was her _one_ and they were ready now – not only for each other, but for the happiness they could give and find within the other. Felicity desperately wanted to be touching him, but that felt impossible with her trapped inside the A.T.O.M. suit so instead she told him, her voice tinged with both humor and bliss, "If I could figure out how to get this thing off, I would be kissing you right now."

His laughter, warm and rich, rolled around them emphasizing just how jubilant the moment was and not just because they were alive and safe, but because she could see the acceptance of what they were to each other, as well as, the love he felt for her on his face. It shone out of his eyes, radiated from his dimpled smile and resounded in the air around them with his laugh.

In fact, the whole world seemed to vibrate around them. A causal nexus clearly separating her life between before and after this moment that was still taking place as they gazed into each other eyes and could possibly always be happening depending on how you looked at space and time. And in their eternal moment Felicity knew that no matter what came next it would be the two of them together, _as one_ , facing it.


End file.
